The Corporate Director Podcast

What does it take to move the needle on board diversity—and help first-time board members truly have a voice in the board room? To gain some insights on recruitment, refreshment, and new member empowerment, podcast co-host Dottie Schindlinger talks to Coco Brown, founder and CEO of the Athena Alliance.

What does it mean to be a good employer and corporate citizen today? JUST Capital CEO Martin Whittaker talks about changing roles in 2020, the challenges of ESG reporting, and what boards should thinking about leading up to the US presidential election.

How can boards accelerate movement on diversity? Evaluations, mentorship, and initiatives like Board Ready can help—and strengthen boards’ responses to today’s “triple pandemic” of COVID-19, its economic repercussions, and systemic racial injustice.

What does a high-performing board look like in 2020, already a year like no other? To gain insights, podcast co-host Meghan Day talks to Anna Catalano, who serves on the boards of Willis Towers Watson, Kraton Corporation, HollyFrontier Corporation, Frontdoor, Inc., and Appvion.

“We may vote against the election of directors where we have concerns that a company might not be dealing with E&S factors appropriately.” This new addition to BlackRock’s corporate governance and proxy voting guidelines shifts ESG from “an afterthought to a strategic imperative” for boards, says Helle Bank Jorgensen, a globally recognized sustainability, climate change, and ESG expert. To help board members keep pace, Jorgensen founded Competent Boards to give current and future directors an online platform to learn from global experts and each other. The end goal is for board members to “get the tools to get the insight to get the foresight they need to make better decisions and make their companies more resilient.” In this episode, podcast co-host Meghan Day talks to Jorgensen about ESG, boards, and expectations today, drawing from Jorgensen’s experience advising companies from Maersk to Unilever, serving as a board facilitator for the UN Global Compact Board Program and serving on the expert panel for His Royal Highness Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability Project. (“The closest to royalty I’m going to get,” Day jokes.)

In the tumultuous year that has been 2020, it might seem prudent for companies to hunker down, lower expectations, and put proactive strategy on the back burner until the business climate stabilizes. Resist that urge, Shellye Archambeau says. Archambeau was among the first Black female CEOs in Silicon Valley when she held that post at MetricStream, a platform and software provider in the governance, risk, and compliance space. Speaking with podcast co-host Meghan Day, Archambeau drew from her board membership with Verizon, Nordstrom, Roper Technologies and Okta, as well as her new book, “Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms,” to talk about how boards can stay on track in today’s business environment.

The pandemic is transforming how corporate boards conduct business. For starters, with months of virtual meeting experience now behind them, most board members have largely mastered this tricky terrain. Can boards apply the best habits of today’s virtual meetings to more effective operations beyond the COVID-19 crisis? Eileen Kamerick brings a particularly rich perspective on the subject. She serves on the boards of four companies—AIG Funds, Associated Banc-Corp, Legg Mason Closed-End Mutual Funds, and Hochschild Mining—and chairs three audit committees and one corporate governance committee. From all of the virtual meetings she’s attended since March, and her extensive governance and corporate leadership experience, she has some insights and suggestions. Here Kamerick joins co-hosts Dottie Schindlinger and Meghan Day to talk about what she’s seeing and how lessons learned could—and should—shape the future.

Declining foot traffic. The migration to digital and e-commerce brands. More globalization and lower barriers to entry. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic sent in-store shoppers and their wallets home for months, the future of retail has been called “dire” and “apocalyptic.” Have online retailers like Amazon won the battle for good? Anddria Clack-Rogers Varnado brings a dual perspective to this question from the worlds of retail and governance. She’s held executive strategy roles with Williams-Sonoma and Macy’s, where she’s currently chief strategy officer, and serves on the board of directors for Umpqua Holdings.

At the beginning of 2020, the environmental, sustainability/social, governance (ESG) discussion centered around climate change. What a difference a few months makes. The pandemic shutdowns, worldwide outrage over police brutality and systemic racism – what does it all mean for boards? Roy Dunbar brings a multi-faceted perspective from executive leadership roles at Network Solutions, MasterCard, and Eli Lilly and now serving on the boards of Humana, Johnson Controls, and SiteOne Landscaping.

On this week’s episode, hosts Dottie Schindlinger and Meghan day reflect on the recent events, and how corporate leaders are responding to the #BlackLivesMatter protests and denouncing racism and police violence. Then, Meghan shares her previously recorded interview with Larry Clinton, President of the Internet Security Alliance, on the huge uptick in cybercrime during the pandemic. According to Larry, if cybercrime around the world had its own economy, it would be big enough to qualify for inclusion among the G-10 nations. Larry discussed what it all means for boards, and what board members need to ask and expect from management in this new environment of increased cyber risk.